KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 — Low Taek Jho — now a fugitive better known as Jho Low — had in 2014 claimed to know then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and had threatened local financial publication The Edge on its reporting on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, The Edge’s owner told the court today.
Tan Sri Tong Kooi Ong, 63, owns The Edge, a publication which had been writing on 1MDB since 2010. Tong previously said The Edge’s news reports on 1MDB had upset those in the Prime Minister’s Office during Najib’s tenure as prime minister.
As the 43rd prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of 1MDB’s RM2.28 billion that were said to have entered the former prime minister’s personal bank accounts, Tong today continued to testify about his private meeting on March 6, 2015 at Najib’s private residence to brief the latter about Low’s theft of US$700 million from 1MDB via Low’s company Good Star Limited.
Asked by lead prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram whether he was aware of any relationship that Najib may have had with Low by the time the 2015 meeting was held, Tong confirmed this.
“Yes, I already by then knew that Jho knows him, because Jho has actually came forward and met me before that,” Tong said. “In 2014, after The Edge started writing, Jho Low through an Edge reporter contacted me to see me and saw me twice,” he said, adding that he had already known Low’s father Tan Sri Larry Low since the 1990s as the latter used to have an office in the same tower.
Confirming that Jho Low met with him twice, Tong said: “Jho told me that, he knows Najib. In the meetings I had with Jho, obviously in the first meeting I had with Jho, (he said) Edge was wrong, he had nothing to do with 1MDB.
“In the second meeting, he did say he knows Najib and that we should be careful about what we wrote,” he said.
Asked by Sri Ram what message he thought Low was trying to convey, Tong replied: “The same as Paul Stadlen, he was threatening us to stop.” Tong was referring to Stadlen, who was known to be a former media adviser of Najib.
Sri Ram: It was a threat.
Tong: I took it as a threat.
Sri Ram: How did you respond?
Tong: My usual way, basically, I just ignore threats.
While Tong had previously testified that the “initial impression” both he and Najib’s younger brother Tan Sri Nazir Razak had were that Najib may have been misled about 1MDB, he confirmed today that his impression has since changed and now believes Najib could have known more about 1MDB.
Sri Ram: Did that impression alter at all? In other words, you were under the impression he was being misled, after you met with him, following the events that took place, after you met with him, did that impression alter at all?
Tong: Yes, over time, I felt that he could have known more than we originally thought.
Sri Ram: What led you to change, to alter the impression?
Tong: Based on everything that subsequently happened to the March meeting. For example, as we got more and more information and pieced together the information we received from the emails, The Edge wrote more and more reports. But each time we did it, there were more and more pressure on us from the various state apparatus, whether they be barring me from leaving or income tax raid or police questioning and so on and obviously suspension of The Edge and arrest of Kay Tat and Jahabar and so, and put that together with the threat that was already coming from Paul Stadlen, it appears that someone was trying to stop us, yeah.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes tomorrow.
MORE TO COME
